Herbert Goth | lindaseccaspina

Sent to Canada’s Shutter Island for the Death of Sarah McArton

September 6 1928

Herbert Goth, charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of 84 year-old Miss Sarah McArton, appeared on Tuesday before Magistrate R.A. Patchell at Carleton Place for preliminary hearing, and was remanded for one week

Sarah McArton of Ramsay Township was hit and killed by a drunk driver in Carleton Place in August 1928. The jury in Carleton Place blamed the McArton buggy for being on the wrong side of the road. Sarah’s brother John had placed the family buggy facing west on Edmond Street so that the east bound traffic passed against them. Mr. Goth on passing east hit the buggy with both McArton siblings in it they were getting in after church. (St. James)

Dr. Johnson said that Miss McArton’s death was due to shock, not the bruises cuts and broken legs she acquired from the accident. Chief of police Irvine told Dr. Metcalfe he did not object to the way the buggy was parked and did notice the intoxicants on Herbert Goth.

W. W. Anderson and his son W. J. Anderson said that Goth was travelling way too fast at 15 to 20 miles an hour and they had to pull over at the intersection to allow him to pass. Other witnesses were: John White Sr., Harry Bennett, William Logan, Everard White, and Arthur Gerrard. The accused in a Carleton Place court on a charge of manslaughter and allowed out on bail of $5000.

He spent only six months in the Burwash Prison Farm or now known as Canada’s Shutter Island.

The prison was located near Sudbury and was called The Burwash Correctional Centre from 1972 to 1974. They left the main building (hospital) but gutted them (including the wiring & plumbing). All one storey buildings were bulldozed including barns, sheds, garages. The farm was a minimum – medium security facility that housed mainly non-violent offenders. It was a full fledged farm and the prisoners grew their own food.

The original name was Farmlands. The prison was renamed the Burwash Industrial Farm in 1927, and in 1972 the name was changed to Burwash Correctional Centre. In the beginning of the farm the guards may have lived there though. When they shut it down they made sure that no successive government could ever reopen it without incurring a major expense.They bulldozed, crushed, and buried everything.